Archive

Intel i7 Processor Architecture Seminar

The Intel i7 seminar was another successful even conducted by the chapter at May 18th, 2009 in building 20kh in Khaldiya. The seminar was presented by Naeem Hamami from Intel talking about the i7 architecture which was not yet released yet that time. He also talked about the market availability of the i7 processor and ended the session with Q&A and some prizes were given away at the end.

Attendance was moderate with about two scores of attendees. The feedback I received from Intel is that the computer engineering students were smart and most of the questions asked during the session were technical questions that needed a specialized engineer to answer their questions.

Entertainment Day

It’s an open day with lots of entertaining activities throughout the day at March 5th, 2009. Here’s a list of some of the activities we had:

Playstation 3 football competition for guys

Missing words competition

Wii game for the gals

Barbeque lunch

Pottery Trappings

Table Tennis

Movie night with popcorn

Live football match

Hundreds of students participated in some way to the event. The most excited activity was the pottery trappings were many gals participated. The picture on the left shows potteries that were completed.

The last activity was the movie show Bolt in building 20kh. Popcorns and soft drinks were handed out to the audience. Some students brought their families which was awesomely the first time families interacted with us.

After the movie, we handed out prizes for the winners of our activities and competitions.

Microsoft has a program called MACH (Microsoft Academy for College Hire) to hire fresh graduates. As a Microsoft Student Partner, Microsoft has informed me that they are looking for fresh graduates and senior students in Kuwait University who would like to take part in this program. Participants will be offered a full time employment opportunity at Microsoft.

In order to qualify you have to meet the followings:

Be a final year student of an IT-related degree (2009 graduates will also be eligible)

Have a GPA equivalent to 3.0 or above

Be able to demonstrate a passion for technology

Speak and write fluent English and Arabic

Possess excellent communication and presentation skills as well as strong interpersonal skills

By the end of November of 2008 the new board of 2009 was established. The Chair and Vice Chair position were chosen by a vote from the previous board members. It resulted on me to run as the Chairman and Mosa Alsulaimi was chosen as the Vice Chairman. All other positions were chosen by recommendation of previous board after interviewing only those whom applied for the board. We’ve ended up with the following board members:

Kuwait University ACM Student Chapter Board of 2009

Chairman: Saleh Alsaffar

Vice Chairman: Mosa Alsulaimi

Treasurer: Ali AlSahaf

Public Relation: Taleb Behbehani & Shatha Shameya

Media Coordinator: Areej Hamouda & Faye Altammar

Membership Coordinator: Mohammed Ghazall

Cultural Coordinator: Yacoub Dashti

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Mohammed Jeragh then Dr. Abdulla Mutawa

It took us time to organize ourselves and then we ended up with three events being held during the first semester.

Trip to KNPC

The plan was to do an education trip to KNPC’s I.T. department and gain more knowledge on how I.T. professionals work there. IT happened so fast and easily since a volunteer named Bader Alnaser has a relative who works there and which made it easy for us to contact them.

A very informative trip to Kuwait National Petroleum Company located in Alahmadi area. At 12:30 we gather at the parking lot where the buses were waiting for us. Later on, at first sight, the building looks really astonishing and huge. We’ve started off with an introductory seminar about KNPC and the a quick glimpse of the I.T. infrastructure of the company that took about half an hour.

The seminar ended and there was a buffet where we had our lunch and in the same time they‘ve interviewed me for the local KNPC magazine. After we filled our stomach with tasty lunch they guided us to the upper floor where awesome servers were running in a room. They’ve divided us into three groups and showed us the aim of each server, how they are connected and lots of other information.

The going back trip was quiet and we have really enjoyed the trip. We were talking about it on the way back to the campus. Students were provided with snacks and drinks on the bus. By 3:30 we were back to the campus and the mission was a great success!

Trip to Kuwait Airways

We wanted this trip to be a technology demonstration of Kuwait Airway’s infrastructure but unfortunately they’ve decided to show us their safety measurements instead. We headed to Kuwait Airways and learned the types of planes in service and their safety which is, according to them, the reason why their tickets are expensive!

CCNA1 and 2 Courses

We provide student with an official CCNA1 courses almost every year but this time we added CCNA2 courses to satisfy the growing number of CCNA1 graduates. This is an official course from Cisco and has been introduced to Kuwait University by Dr. Fawaz Alenezi. The course costs only 30KD to 40KD which is cheap compare to the original price of 150KD. Of course, this course is only for Kuwait University students and staff.

Around 50 students were registered for the CCNA1 and 13 students for the CCNA2. First class kicked off by the Winter vacation of February 2, 2009. The course ended with the final exams being held by March 15, 2009 and all students who passed the CCNA1 and CCNA2 exams had their certificates printed and signed by Cisco.

There is no doubt in my mind that 2009 was one of the best years of my life. Not only was I a chairman in the ACM Student Chapter, I was also a Microsoft Student Partner, Adobe Student Representative for Rich Internet Application, Sun OSUM Leader and I also held the Vice President position of the DotNet Club. I’m going to start writing a series of post talking about the student club and our activities and by that I hope what we have done will still remain in the memory of students and in a tiny dot in the massive world wide web. For whom you may ask? For whomever is interested in whatever happens in KU or might find useful information

The History of Computer Engineering Societies

The ACM Student Chapter of Kuwait University is officially known as CpES, the Computer Engineering Societies, and we are the only student club for the Computer Engineering department of Faculty of Engineering and Petroleum. The society was founded in 1993 under the supervision of Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed with 6 board members but unfortunately, the chapter was engaged for only one semester because all members were at their senior year. I do not have any picture or publication that were published during that time nor that I have any more information about the members.

ACM is the world largest and oldest educational and scientific computing society founded in 1947 and serves all professionals and students in the field of Information Technology.

The chapter remained idle until 2000 and they managed pull one successful activity which is a trip to the Scientific Center of Kuwait to reestablish the chapter. The students who were involved were: Mohammed Al-Kanderi, Mai Al-Sharhan, Abdullah Al-Bloshy, Othman Al-Failakawi and Basma Al-Jenae.

The chapter went idle, again, until September 2001 were five officers (board membes) arise to lead the chapter. Those students were: Bashar Al-Finaini (Chair), Bashayer Al-Awad (Vice Chair), Nada Shishter (Treasurer), Ahmad Al-Qaoud (Secretary), Deena Rabee (Media Coordinator) and Dalal Hasan (Cultural Coordinator). The chapter during that time was under the supervision of Dr. Amar Al-Hosaini, and according to what I have found in the chapter’s achieves that during that time the chapter registered officially as an ACM chapter. I’m not sure if that indicates that the chapter wasn’t officially registered post 2001.

Their first event which was called "Computer Engineering Student Week of Information Technology" and followed by series of ‘special’ events according to the archives.

Activities

I’m going to list all events we have done during the 2008 and the 2009 terms. I don’t have the list of all events before the 2008 period. I’m going to update the post when I have the full list of activities that have been done before the 2008 term.

So I have listed the events during the 2008 and the 2009 periods. Of course we did have some other activities we have done like handouts and participating in CpE department events.Coming up a blog post with details about each event.